Rick Horsch
Rick Horsch recently retired as a Partner at White & Case LLP, a global law firm, where his practice focused on U.S. environmental law and international environmental law. He was Chair of the Firm’s Global Environmental Practice for more than 25 years.
Mr. Horsch has extensive experience in the area of climate change law, including international climate change treaties. Significant representations have included:
- Advisor to consortium of developing countries in connection with the negotiation of the Paris Climate Accord signed in 2015 and the subsequent implementation of the Paris Accord provisions;
- Advisor to Party to Montreal Protocol in connection with 2016 negotiation of phase-down of HFCs under the Kigali Amendment to the Protocol;
- Legal advisor to sovereign nation on the establishment and start-up of a Designated National Authority to review and approve proposed projects developed under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol; and
- Advisor to multinational company in identifying and implementing projects to reduce the company’s carbon footprint.
Mr. Horsch has successfully litigated complex environmental matters. Significant representations have included:
- Lead counsel in lawsuit against New York City Department of Education, requiring removal of PCB lighting fixtures from classrooms in more than 700 public schools, New York Communities for Change v. NYC Department of Education (11-CV-3494, EDNY);
- Lead counsel to class of more than 1,000 homeowners surrounding a solid waste landfill, recovering damages against one of the nation’s largest waste haulers for its unlawful operation of the landfill; and
- Lead counsel in lawsuit asserting CERCLA claims against the City of New York and against its environmental consultant arising from the presence of contaminated soils on client’s property in the Bronx, New York.
Mr. Horsch has also advised on environmental issues in mergers and acquisitions, and in project financings, domestically and internationally. He has represented parties in scores of transactions in the United States and around the world. He has handled environmental matters in such countries as South Korea, Japan, China, the Philippines, India, Chile and Mexico and many countries in Western Europe and Scandinavia.
He is an Adjunct with Columbia Law School, teaching International Environmental Law, and an Adjunct with Columbia University School of Professional Studies and Columbia’s Earth Institute, teaching U.S. Environmental law and International Environmental law. He is on the Board of Advisors to the NYU School of Law Institute for Policy Integrity, and is Director Emeritus with the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.
Joseph DiMona
Joe DiMona is a music industry attorney who was in house counsel to Broadcast Music, Inc., (BMI) the performing rights licensing organization, until leaving BMI as Vice President, Legal Affairs, after 27 years in December 2019 to pursue his interest in environmental issues, including climate change. Prior to joining BMI in 1992 Joe worked for six years as an associate at the law firm Reid & Priest in Washington, DC, where he did regulatory work for electric and gas utilities before the FERC as well as represented BMI in copyright royalty proceedings. Throughout his legal career Joe has worked on public policy issues, including legislative and regulatory matters in the copyright and music licensing areas, as well as state legislative work. Joe is experienced in digital media, and was involved in creating BMI’s first digital music licensing for Internet websites in 1995, a groundbreaking development at that time.
Joe has been a frequent speaker at legal and music industry conferences and seminars on behalf of BMI on a wide variety of music business and copyright developments. Joe received his J.D. degree from Columbia University School of Law in 1986, and graduated magna cum laude from Duke University in 1981 with a major in political science. Joe also spent a year while an undergrad at Duke living in Paris, France, studying at Sciences Po on the NYU in France program. Joe is a member of the Recording Academy, the Copyright Society of the USA, the Association of Independent Music Publishers, the American Bar Association’s Entertainment and Sports Forum and the New York City Bar Association. He is a board member of ALAI-US, the US branch of the Association Litteraire et Artistique Internationale, an international organization that protects the rights of authors and creators. Joe lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY with his wife Lisa, a literary agent with Writers House. They have two children Alessandra and Matt who work in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, California.
Marcy Kahn
Marcy L. Kahn recently retired after serving 32 years as a judge in the New York State Unified Court System, most recently as an Associate Justice of the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department. Prior to her judicial service, she was a litigation partner at Anderson Kill & Olick, P.C. and a litigation associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, both in New York City. Earlier, she served as a Special Assistant Attorney General in the Office of the New York State Special Prosecutor investigating corruption in the New York City Criminal Justice System.
In addition to hundreds of judicial opinions, she has authored five law review articles. She has developed and presented continuing education programs for the bench and bar for more than 35 years in New York and around the country on topics including environmental toxic exposures, capital punishment, domestic violence, judicial selection and human rights, including justice issues for Native Americans and LGBTQ persons. In 2019, she was one of twelve U.S. judges invited to speak by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences at the First Pan-American Judges’ Summit on Social Rights, the Environment and Social Justice held at the Vatican. She has participated in programming for the United Nations ECOSOC Commission on the Status of Women, including co-leading a group of international women judges at the United Nations, She has lectured for the National Judicial College, the National Tribal Law and Policy Institute, the National Center for State Courts and the United States Department of Justice, as well as for the New York Judicial Institute and various bar associations and law schools.
Justice Kahn’s leadership roles within the New York Court System and in the community have included serving as founding board chair of the New York LGBT Community Center, convener of the New York Federal-State-Tribal Courts and Indian Nations Justice Forum, co-chair of the New York Capital Cases Judicial Resource Committee, and inaugural co-chair of the Richard C. Failla LGBTQ Commission for the New York Courts. She retired from the Appellate Division in 2019 in order to do policy advocacy in the areas of climate change, human rights and the rule of law.
Jordan Gerow
Jordan Gerow is an energy law specialist with a range of experience in promoting microgrids, distributed energy resources, and utility reform. He graduated magna cum laude from the Elizabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University with concentrations in environmental and international law, and worked for several years with the Pace Energy and Climate Center as a Staff Attorney. His work has included analysis of the legal framework for microgrid development. To that end, he has served as an advisor to ten projects in the NY Prize competition, and offered expert testimony in utility rate cases on the benefits of and hurdles to microgrid development. He has appeared before multiple state PUCs on questions of microgrids and distributed energy, and worked extensively in New York’s Reforming the Energy Vision proceeding, focusing on the Value of Distributed Energy Resources, and Clean Energy Standard proceeding. Among the LPDD team, he takes the lead responsibility for researching outside legal resources for this site, and managing and organizing the database.
Karla Perri
Karla Perri is an attorney and senior executive with over 25 years of experience in federal and state environmental, energy, and sustainability issues. As a Member of the Spectrum Group LLC, a government affairs firm located in Alexandria, Virginia, she primarily provides strategic advice and support to corporate clients who market their products and services to the federal government. For the past several years she has focused on policy, legislative and regulatory issues in the defense energy sector. Ms. Perri is a former Presidential appointee to the Senior Executive Service at the Department of Defense, where she served as an Assistant Deputy Undersecretary of Defense in the Office of Environmental Security. Previous federal service also includes working at the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Global Change, on issues related to the Montreal Protocol and the phase out of chlorinated solvents, and numerous other regulatory issues in both the Office of Air and Radiation, and the Office of Toxics Substances.
In addition to federal service, Ms. Perri practiced environmental litigation, was a senior lobbyist with a major trade association and worked on Capitol Hill as staff on the Joint Economic Committee, and at the Congressional Research Service. Ms. Perri is also an Assistant Adjunct Professor at UMGC and teaches graduate classes in cybersecurity governance, management and policy.
She is engaged with both the legislative peer review and outreach teams on the LPDD project. To contact her, please reach out to Joe Dimona at joe.dimona@lpdd.org.